Sanctuary (n): a place of refuge and protection

November 30, 2018: The AIDS legacy is built on creating sanctuary. When a mysterious epidemic that researchers did not yet understand and politicians did not yet dare name aloud claimed the lives of our lovers, partners, friends, and family, we organized and fought back—establishing our long legacy as fierce, effective fighters for justice. When people diagnosed with HIV were shunned by their families, fired from jobs, and kicked out of their homes, it was other AIDS activists who took them in, providing refuge, nursing them to health and, all too frequently, supporting them through end of life choices.

AIDS activists created buyer’s clubs, hospice spaces, and support groups. We founded organizations to fill gaps where the State refused to claim responsibility. We wrote the Denver Principles – the first time a group of people with a shared medical diagnosis had demanded a set of rights and responsibilities. We fought for dignity, inclusion, compassionate care, meaningful research, quality medications–and for each other’s lives.

This World AIDS Day, as in years past, Positive Women’s Network-USA remembers and honors those who created this legacy for our community and the millions who have died from inattention and injustice. In their names, we call for a new form of sanctuary in the domestic HIV community: the absolute right to migration, movement, rights, health, and dignity for all people seeking refuge in the United States.

Firing teargas at migrants seeking safety runs contrary to everything our community stands for, as does hosting an international HIV conference in a country that is dangerous and inhospitable to Black and brown people living with HIV globally.

Roxsana Hernandez, a woman of trans experience fleeing persecution in her native Honduras, was detained in freezing conditions and beaten in ICE custody before dying of HIV-related pneumonia. As an undocumented immigrant, she suffered a painful, unjustified, and completely avoidable death.

We are saddened that we have heard far too little support for immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, in the HIV advocacy community. In light of the continued verbal, political and physical attacks on immigrants since Trump took office, it is past time that we all step up to show that, even as survivors of marginalization, discrimination, and violence ourselves, we can stand in meaningful solidarity with those who have been most singled out for dehumanization over the past two years.

Silence=Death.

This is not just an empty slogan to people living with HIV, especially those intimately familiar with the early days of the epidemic. Effective antiretroviral drugs did not just fall from the sky, and despite the best intentions of so many scientists and doctors, without government funding and political will to address HIV, we probably still would not have them today.

Without political will, there is no progress; and without public pressure, there is no political will.

When Ronald Reagan and his allies in power were content to let hundreds of thousands die because they were gay or used drugs—or were perceived to be either—we fought back.

When the powers that be got complacent with the progress in modern medicine, as new incidence declined among white gay men, but continued to rise among Black, brown, and trans communities, we fought back.

We are still fighting.

Today, the president of the United States regularly describes Latin American immigrants as “animals” and “criminals.” Indeed, he won – and maintains – the support of much of his base by demonizing and dehumanizing immigrants. His administration backs up this hateful rhetoric with immigration policies and enforcement tactics that rob vulnerable people of their humanity, including a proposed change to the “public charge” rule intended to discourage immigrants from accessing essential services to take care of themselves and their families, including food stamps and health care. This is just cruel.

Will we fight for them as we have fought for ourselves?

As people living with HIV; as women and people of trans experience; as Black and brown folks; as descendants of slaves and immigrants —  we understand what it means to stare down the steep abyss of inadequate political, legal, social, and economic power.

Positive Women’s Network – USA recommits to stand with all immigrants, regardless of legal status, port of entry, country of origin, or health status, on World AIDS Day and every day until we are all free.

Will you stand with us?

You can take one first step by submitting your comment to oppose the draconian changes to public charge here.